Sunidhi Report Initiates Black Box at BUY, Target INR 1,500; Order Book at US Dollar 949mn

Mumbai, October 29, 2026: Sunidhi Institutional Research, the research arm of Sunidhi Securities & Finance Limited, a SEBI-registered research analyst and stockbroker with NSE, BSE and MSEI, has initiated coverage on Black Box Ltd with a BUY rating and a 12-month target price of ₹1,500, implying about 69.5% upside from the ₹885 market price cited in its report, “Rebuilt Platform to Ride the Data-Centre Capex Wave”. Its central argument: demand is not the constraint on Black Box’s growth in the US data centre build-out; skilled labour is.

US hyperscalers’ capex has nearly doubled to ~US$800bn+ in 2026, and global data centre capacity is projected to grow by ~100GW over 2025–30, requiring ~US$3 trillion of investment. Accelerator generations turn over every four to six years, making data centre work a recurring refresh opportunity. Management sizes the annual addressable market at US$240–250 billion; Black Box’s expected FY27 data centre revenue of ~US$194 million is just ~0.26% of the ~US$75 billion US construction run-rate.

Black Box is the only Indian-listed digital infrastructure player with direct, high-scale exposure to the US, where it earns ~70% of its revenue, and serves four of the top six hyperscalers. Its customers include four of the top five US banks, three of the top five US tech firms and five of the top ten US hospital networks.

Order backlog nearly doubled in 27 months to US$949 million in June 2026 from US$470–500 million, lifting revenue cover from 0.71x to 1.35x. Project backlog rose 2.5x to US$440 million (46% of the book) and average contract tenure lengthened from 12–15 months to ~18 months. In Q1 FY27, revenue rose 23.9% to ₹17,185 million and EBITDA 42.2% to ₹1,489 million (margin 8.7%, up 111bps), with a US$131 million services-only order from a new US hyperscaler.

Data centres were 14.6% of FY26 revenue, guided to ~30% in FY27 and 50% by FY30. FY27 guidance includes backlog of US$1.3–1.4 billion, revenue of ₹78,000–80,000 million and EBITDA of ₹7,250–7,500 million (9.3–9.4% margin); the FY30 aspiration is US$2 billion in revenue.

To ease labour constraints, Black Box plans to add ~2,000 professionals in 12 months, including ~1,500 technical specialists, on a base of ~4,000, and ~3,000 by FY30, mostly in the US. It has 75 delivery centres, 3,000+ certifications, an India centre of ~630 employees and, through the 2S Brazil acquisition, a Latin America run-rate of US$80–100 million. It targets acquisitions of ~US$200 million a year.

Black Box consolidated ~22 ERP systems into one SAP back-office, lifting EBITDA margin from 4.3% in FY23 to 9.0% in FY25. Sunidhi forecasts revenue, EBITDA and adjusted PAT CAGRs of 27.5%, 31.7% and 40.7% over FY26–29E, and says certified labour, not capital, is the bottleneck, with Black Box’s 1GW-plus record hard for general contractors or commodity IT resellers to replicate.

Note: Rating, target price and forecasts are Sunidhi Research’s views; guidance and targets are management’. Market price is as cited in the report dated October 7, 2026.